Overview
Alternative forms of co-existence
Key details
- 180 credits
- 1 (FT) / 2 (PT) year programme
- Full-time or part-time study
School or Centre
Location
- Kensington
Next open event
Application deadline
- Applications closed. Please check back soon.
Career opportunities
- Environmental Architecture graduates are expected to go on to work in a range of fields, from further academic study to roles in environmentalist NGOs, urban planning agencies and design agencies including architecture, landscape architecture and environmental design.
Explore the future of landscapes, environments and ecosystems.
Environmental Architecture is forging a new field of knowledge production and practice, designing alternative forms of co-dependence between life forms and earth systems. The programme blends design, ethnography, and technoscientific tools to analyse, classify, and produce environmental data. At the same time, you’ll gain insight from global environmental leaders, histories and theories of environmental change, explore change history, and delve into environmental law and climate justice.
As part of the programme, you’ll engage with live projects in sites of complex environmental change. Work with experts from other disciplines, such as lawyers, geologists or biologists. Embark on multiple-day field trips where you can stakeholders and meet local communities while testing and exploring environmental research and analysis methods.
Possible research areas include sustainable forms of urbanisation, concepts of stewardship, environmental change and its effect on migration and settlement patterns, climate justice, impacts of resource extraction on ecosystems, energy transition, post-development and degrowth, indigenous struggles, and many others.
Join a top art institution and benefit from a rich culture of radical, interdisciplinary work at the Royal College of Art. Forge global connections through our pioneering mentorship scheme, uniting you with local and international expertise, elevating your journey in the field.
Applications will open in autumn for September 2025 entry. If you would like to make a late application for 2024/5, some programmes may still have spaces so please contact [email protected] as soon as possible.
Register your interest to be the first to know when applications for 2025 entry open.
Catch the replays from our latest online Open Day.
Gallery
Staff
Facilities
The School of Architecture is currently based at our historic Kensington site.
View all facilitiesOur studios are the heart of day-to-day activity for the School. Studios are purpose-designed for inspiration and interaction between students of different design disciplines. Studio workspace is provided for each student. In addition, you have access to wood, metal, plastic and resin workshop facilities, as well as contemporary digital fabrication equipment and a suite of bookable project and making spaces.
Student and alumni stories
More details on what you'll study.
Find out what you'll cover in this programme.
What you'll cover
What will I learn?
The MA Environmental Architecture programme aims to expand the scope and content of design-led research in the field of architecture, environmental studies and territorial management. Possible areas of inquiry can include: sustainable forms of urbanisation; concepts of stewardship and care for nature; environmental change and its effect on migration and settlement patterns; climate justice adaptation to land use practices; impacts of resource extraction on ecosystems; environmental impacts of the energy transition; post-development and degrowth; indigenous struggles for land and environments; among many others.
Students on the MA Environmental Architecture programme will have the opportunity to pursue a degree within a world leading art and design institution, and to access the rich culture of radical and experimental interdisciplinary work at the Royal College of Art. Moreover, the programme will help students to establish a network of colleagues and mentors by offering them the opportunity of connecting to leading figures in Environmental Architecture both in London and internationally through an innovative practice mentorship scheme.
How will I learn?
There will be several opportunities to collaborate with others, but at a minimum, your programme will include 200.5 contact hours and 1599.5 independent study hours. Contact hours can consist of lectures, seminars, tutorials, critical forums and workshops, among other types of teaching delivery.
Teaching types included in your programme can include briefings, projects, tutorials, seminars, lectures, critical forums, technical inductions, technical workshops, offsite visits and blended learning.
Programme structure: Full Time
The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.
Term 1
In term 1, you will study Studio Unit 1: Architectures of Extraction. This unit offers an introduction to the programme’s field-focused investigation into resource extraction architectures and their role in the climate and environmental crisis. It familiarises you with particular modes of work, especially design-based research methodologies, and collaborative forms of knowledge production.
Seminar Unit 1: Metabolic Rifts introduces you to the complex entanglements of environment and climate systems.
You will also take Media Studies 1, a School-wide unit that aims to increase your critical engagement with media and space.
Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.
Term 2
In term 2, you will study Research Studio Unit 2: Environmental Interventions, in which you will develop a design intervention strategy for the site explored in term 1. Emphasis will be placed on the definition of outputs, in relation to key project aims and stakeholders.
Seminar Unit 2: Critical Future Scenarios will deepen your understanding of environmental architecture and its potential socio-environmental impacts.
In term 2 all School of Architecture students will be offered an Elective unit.
Term 3
The programme culminates in the Independent Research Project (IRP). This unit enables you to apply the intellectual, technical and professional skills that you have developed throughout the programme to a challenging self-set brief focusing the role of digital tools to fostering social innovation.
AcrossRCA
AcrossRCA is a compulsory 30-credit unit which is delivered as part of all MA programmes.
Situated at the core of your RCA experience, this ambitious interdisciplinary College-wide unit supports you in responding to the challenges of complex, uncertain and changing physical and digital worlds. Developed in response to student feedback, AcrossRCA creates an exciting opportunity for you to collaborate meaningfully across programmes.
Challenging you to use your imagination and intellect to respond to urgent contemporary themes, this ambitious unit will provide you with the opportunity to:
- make connections across disciplines
- think critically about your creative practice
- develop creative networks within and beyond the College
- generate innovative responses to complex problems
- reflect on how to propose ideas for positive change in local and/or global contexts
AcrossRCA launches with a series of presentations and panel discussions from acclaimed speakers who will introduce the themes and act as inspirational starting points for your collaborative team response.
Delivered online and in-person across two terms, the unit has been designed to complement your disciplinary studies and to provide you with a platform to thrive beyond graduation.
Design studio
The weekly design studio is the core of the MA programme. Work in the studio is organised individually and in small student groups (2–4 students), and teaching is conducted during weekly group tutorials and pin-up presentations.
The design studios introduce the pedagogy of the programme, provide you with design skills and research methodologies to analyse case studies, while assisting you with the formulation of research and design proposals. The teaching model combines written and design components, as both are considered essential practices in the generation of a disciplinary ecology. Currently, the programme features three design studios, each exploring architecture’s potential contribution to communities and organisations engaged in territorial disputes and resource extraction:
RS3: Alentejo Research Unit / Liquid Deserts Studio
Previous design studios:
Seminars
Environmental questions are rarely far from contemporary public debate.
Climate change, global warming, global forest fires, and extreme weather events, mass species extinction, the pollution of our air, seas, land and rivers, not to forget the pollution of our own bodies and food supplies are all daily headline news in print and televisual media.
How should we think about these questions within a school of architecture?
Seminars require constant engagement and involvement by students in course material selection and preparation, collective discussions and oral presentations.
Past guests include: Susan Schuppli, Pedro Neves Marques, Adrian Lahoud, Lindsay Bremner, Nabil Ahmed, Nikos Katsikis, Shela Sheik, RIVAL, Zannah Mae Matson, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Phineas Harper, Imani Jacqueline Brown and Professor Aran Chadwick.
Media studies
This unit enables students to explore how architects communicate ideas from both a contemporary and historical perspective. This encompasses a range of media that spans disciplines, ideologies and methods.
Students will use both analogue and digital technologies to understand better how a designer creates, interrogates and manipulates spatial environments.
This investigation will take place in a critical context, which explores how images are used to manufacture socio-political ideologies and negotiate public identities.
Practice mentors
A practice mentorship programme connects students to a network of practitioners through regular meetings taking place in Term 2 and 3, who will introduce you to different types of practice and career issues. You will have the opportunity to meet with different practices representing a variety of possible professional pathways that you might be interested in after completing your studies. In doing so we hope professional practices and organisations might have a foundational role in your development.
Recent practice mentors include:
Marc DuBois
Claudia Montero - Fundación Desierto de Atacama
Pippa Howard – Fauna & Flora International
Dr. Maria Guevara, MD – Médecins Sans Frontières
Konstantina Koulouri – Dark Matter Labs
Dane Carlson – REALMS
Events
Curation, installation, and exhibition are important methods of communication that opens new dialogues about environmental conflicts; while helping creative the threads of research and design travel and form new collaborations. Throughout the programme students have opportunities to show their work within and outside of the RCA.
Requirements
What you need to know before you apply
Candidates are selected entirely on merit and applications are welcomed from all over the world. The selection process will consider creativity, imagination and innovation as demonstrated in your portfolio, as well as your potential to benefit from the programme and to achieve high MA standards overall.
This programme accepts students from a wide range of backgrounds, including career changers. Many of those who join the programme will be students of architecture with a 3+2-year Bachelor and Master’s degree, or master-equivalent 5-year diploma preferably in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Landscape Urbanism, Urban Design or other related design discipline looking to acquire expertise in large scale, environmental and ecological design projects.
However the programme also attracts many people from other backgrounds, such as fine arts, social sciences, geography, urban studies, planning or economics, as well as those who do not already have a Master's degree. If your prior work is of exceptional merit and you’re able to demonstrate your ability to work alongside and contribute to multidisciplinary teams, please do apply. Evidence of your intellectual and professional curiosity and a readiness to engage in a rigorous and demanding period of study is essential.
What's needed from you
Portfolio requirements
Environmental Architecture is a speculative and interdisciplinary programme aimed at exploring the contribution of architecture to our current environmental and climate crises. We welcome architects and designers from all diverse fields of expertise, career changers and people with unique experiences and backgrounds.
If you're not a designer, don’t worry – show us how you’ve addressed environmental and ecological issues in your field, communicate it visually or in writing, evidencing your unique creativity in whatever form this may take.
When uploading your portfolio, we would like you to prioritise pieces of work that showcase:
- ability and commitment in addressing environmental and climate issues
- technical design or visualisation skills (these might take the form of drawing, model making, 3D modelling, animation, film, photography, exhibition design or others)
- research skills (this could include academic papers, fieldwork and documentary practices, science-based environmental analysis or other).
Video requirements
While portfolios showcase important technical and design skills, there are certain aspects of an application that are better grasped by hearing you speak about your own work. As part of your application, you must submit a video of no more than two minutes as part of the application process.
Please take this opportunity to tell us a bit more about your motivations and personal interests, and how these have led you to apply to this programme.
Start by telling us what led to your interest in the Environmental Architecture MA. Could you reflect on some of the difference ways by which architecture could have a positive contribution to addressing climate change?
Finally, where do you see yourself in the future, and what you expect to gain from studying at the Royal College of Art and in the MA Environmental Architecture.
English-language requirements
If you are not a national of a majority English-speaking country you will need the equivalent of an IELTS Academic or UKVI score of 6.5 with a 6.0 in the Test of Written English (TWE) and at least 5.5 in other skills. Students achieving a grade of at least 6.0, with a grade of 5.5 in the Test of Written English, may be eligible to take the College’s English for Academic Purposes course to enable them to reach the required standard.
You are exempt from this requirement if you have received a 2.1 degree or above from a university in a majority English-speaking nation within the last two years.
If you need a Student Visa to study at the RCA, you will also need to meet the Home Office’s minimum requirements for entry clearance.
Student Visas
If you require a Student Visa (part-time route) for the MA Environmental Architecture programme, you will have work restrictions and will not be allowed to work in the UK during your studies. If you are currently employed on a Tier 2 visa you can apply for the part-time MA Environmental Architecture programme as long as you can continue to work for the same employer who is sponsoring you, otherwise you would need to switch to a Student Visa (part-time route) and would no longer be allowed to work in the UK.
For more information please see Student Visa or contact our Student support team.
Fees & funding
For this programme
Fees for new students
Fees for September 2024 entry on this programme are outlined below. From 2021 onward, EU students are classified as Overseas for tuition fee purposes.
Home (Full-time)
Overseas and EU (Full-time)
Home (Part-time)
Overseas and EU (Part-time)
Deposit
New entrants to the College will be required to pay a non-refundable deposit in order to secure their place. This will be offset against the tuition fees.
Home
Overseas and EU
Progression discount
For alumni and students who have completed an RCA Graduate Diploma and progress onto an RCA Master's programme – MA, MA/MSc, MFA, MDes, MArch, MEd or MRes – within 10 years, a progression discount of £1,000 is available.
* Total cost is based on the assumption that the programme is completed in the timeframe stated in the programme details. Additional study time may incur additional charges.
Scholarships
Scholarships
The RCA scholarship programme is growing, with hundreds of financial awards planned for the 2025/6 academic year.
For more information and examples of financial awards offered in 2024/25, visit the Scholarships & awards webpage.
You must hold an offer to study on an RCA programme in order to make a scholarship application in Spring 2024. A selection of RCA merit scholarships will also be awarded with programme offers.
We strongly recommend that you apply for your programme as early as possible to stand the best chance of receiving a scholarship. You do not apply directly for individual awards; instead, you will be invited to apply once you have received an offer.
More information
Additional fees
In addition to your programme fees, please be aware that you may incur other additional costs associated with your study during your time at RCA. Additional costs can include purchases and services (without limitation): costs related to the purchase of books, paints, textiles, wood, metal, plastics and/or other materials in connection with your programme, services related to the use of printing and photocopying, lasercutting, 3D printing and CNC. Costs related to attending compulsory field trips, joining student and sport societies, and your Convocation (graduation) ceremony.
If you wish to find out more about what type of additional costs you may incur while studying on your programme, please contact the Head of your Programme to discuss or ask at an online or in person Open Day.
We provide the RCASHOP online, and at our Kensington and Battersea Campuses – this is open to students and staff of the Royal College of Art only to provide paid for materials to support your studies.
We also provide support to our students who require financial assistance whilst studying, including a dedicated Materials Fund.
External funding
There are many funding sources, with some students securing scholarships and others saving money from working. It is impossible to list all the potential funding sources; however, the following information could be useful.
Payments
Tuition fees are due on the first day of the academic year and students are sent an invoice prior to beginning their studies. Payments can be made in advance, on registration or in two instalments.
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